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Home | Overview | Controversies | Timeline | Combatants | Biographies | Glossary | Learn More
Combatant States - Central powers | Austro - Hungary | Germany | Turkey (Ottoman Empire) | Bulgaria
Combatant States - Allies | Serbia | Russia | France | Belgium | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | India | New Zealand | Rhodesia | Union of South Africa | United States of America| Italy | Romania | Greece | Montenegro | Portugal | Japan
Entered War : 4 August 1914 (in support of Britain)
Political system : Self-governing dominion within the British empire (1907)
Leader : Louis Botha: prime minister, 1910-19
Population : 6.45 million (1914)
Army : An expeditionary force of 50,000 men was raised to invade German South West Africa (present-day Namibia) in 1914. A total of 146,000 white South Africans served in the army during the war, while a further 13,000 joined the British armed forces. 85,000 black South Africans served in labour battalions.
Air Force : 1 seaplane (1914)
Recent Diplomacy : Britain had fought the Boer settlers in South Africa in two wars (1880-1, 1899-1902), so in 1914 many Afrikaaners sympathised with Germany. While Botha was raising an expedition to invade German South West Africa, pro-German Boers raised a rebellion against British authority. This was not fully suppressed until early 1915 and only then could the invasion of South West Africa be fully launched.
Casualties by 1918 : 6,600 dead, 12,000 wounded